14 August 2013

Literally.

I won’t bother to link to the article, but once again on the internet, some nimrod was ranting about the end of civilization as we know it, and for evidence he pointed to the fact that once you Google “define:literally” you get this.

Definition 1 is the familiar definition, “Exactly.” Definition 2 is the popular, but often totally opposite, definition, “Virtually.”

The ranter is outraged, I tell you, outraged. Everybody who means “virtually” is using it wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. And now Google is telling them they’re right, because when they look it up on Google, they can now point to it and say, “Aha. Told you it means that.” The reason I’m not linking you to the original article (and the many, many others like it) is because these ranters don’t understand what a dictionary does.

A dictionary informs us what words mean when people use them.